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Increased poaching of rhinos and elephants sparks crackdown on traffickers

Rhino horns, horn products, cash, and gold ingots were seized by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigators in California in 2012 as part an investigation into rhino horn trafficking.
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo

The poaching of rhinos and elephants is reaching crisis levels and going after people trafficking their parts is now the priority for American wildlife investigators, officials said Wednesday, in the wake of an announcement that a Canadian had been charged with smuggling wildlife items across the border.

Despite strict export laws and public appeals from celebrities, the underground trafficking of objects made from endangered species is a growing multibillion-dollar industry that has attracted organized crime, said Edward Grace, deputy assistant director of law enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“(The trafficking of rhino and elephant parts) is the highest priority investigation for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “If something isn’t done to stop this illegal trade, there’s a good possibility our children won’t be able to see elephants or rhinos in the wild.”

Xiao Ju Guan, an antiques dealer in Richmond, B.C., was indicted this week by a federal grand jury in New York after an undercover sting involving U.S. wildlife agents.

Guan travelled to New York from Vancouver on May 29 and paid $45,000 for two black rhinoceros horns from undercover wildlife agents posing as traffickers, according to court documents.

Guan took the horns to a nearby shipping store, intent on sending them to an address in Point Roberts, Wash., just south of the Canadian border, the court documents state. On the shipping label, Guan allegedly wrote that the box contained “handicrafts” worth $200.

Authorities allege that since 2012, Guan and his partners have smuggled dozens of wildlife items containing rhino horns, elephant ivory and coral, worth more than half a million dollars.

A federal public defender assigned to Guan did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.

In this file photo, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Duke of Cambridge feeds a black rhino called Zawadi as he visits Port Lympne Wild Animal Park on June 6, 2012 in Port Lympne, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Guan is one of 19 people who have been arrested since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Department of Justice began a crackdown on the illegal trafficking of rhinoceros horns three years ago.

Authorities acted after noticing an “astronomical” spike in the price of rhino horns on the black market — up to $30,000 per pound — and in response to alarming reports out of Africa about the number of rhinos that were being poached, Grace said.

In South Africa alone, the number of rhinos poached climbed to 1,004 in 2013 from 333 in 2010, according to a news release this month from South African National Parks.

Organized crime groups have been becoming involved in the trafficking of parts, Grace said, citing the arrest and conviction of members of an Irish gang known as the Rathkeale Rovers, considered a major player in the global rhino horn trade.

Experts attribute the expanding underground trade to the growing purchasing power of Asia’s middle class. Rhino horns are sought after particularly in China and Vietnam, Grace said.

In Vietnam, the horns are held up as a status symbol and believed to hold medicinal value. In China, the horns have been carved into libation cups and passed off as antiques. Elephant ivory, meanwhile, is typically used to make jewelry and sculptures.

Leigh Henry, senior policy adviser at the World Wildlife Fund, said Wednesday the need to devote more resources to wildlife trafficking extends beyond the killing of animals.

The poaching of elephants and rhinos has an impact on tourism, and the trafficking of their parts is helping fund insurgent groups and support other forms of criminal activity, including drug and weapons trafficking.

It’s not enough anymore just to go after the poachers, Henry said.

“We need to be targeting the kingpins,” she said.

Earlier this year, Prince William, retired soccer player David Beckham and former basketball player Yao Ming appeared in a public service announcement encouraging viewers to “save our wild rhinos.”

Viewers were asked to imagine if all the people in the world could fit into a stadium.

“Sadly,” viewers were told, “all the wild rhinos in the world can — with room to spare.”